New Artist Spotlight: Gray Haven

Gray Haven is a four piece band from Keene, New Hampshire (Ricky Pelchar, Joe Sansone, Mike Holahan, & Nick St. Amour) and composed of three vocalists, two guitars, bass, and drums.

Gray Haven began as a three piece in 2014 and began by playing basement shows around the college town of Keene, New Hampshire. In 2016, they added guitarist Nick St. Amour to enhance the sound of their band. The four of them began playing shows together, and began writing original music together, which they would then record themselves for their first EP “Tripping at the Petting Zoo,” released April 20th, 2017.

The band then teamed up with manager and videographer Rachel Blumberg, who booked them their first northeast tour. They recorded this latest album while on the road, at Rancho Cucamonga Studios in Brookfield, CT. While on tour, Gray Haven was also featured in a documentary following their tour, featuring insight and interviews about the entertainment industry from LA based production company, Anthem Films. The film was premiered at the Colonial Theatre in Keene, NH.

The album was recorded at Rancho Cucamonga Studios in Brookfield, CT, and mixed by Steely Dan arranger and musician Gary Blu. It was mastered by Zac Johnson in New Hampshire.

A lil bit about the album: Their influences are Nirvana, Jack White, Royal Blood, and Smashing Pumpkins, as well as playing with noise rock and basement grunge influences as well. This album is a mix of pop punk meets basement grunge and modern rock. Each song has a separate style, marinating all the flavors that each band member has to offer in their songwriting. Nick’s voice in Wet Hot American Bummer and Gameboy adds a pop punk feel, much like Story so Far and Neckdeep. Joe, on the other hand, gets his influences from Basement, The Wombats and Arctic Monkeys, adding a bit of a European spin to the songs with his vocals, such as in Me in Pieces. Ricky’s vocals in Elephant seem to be influenced by a middle eastern twang, yet still sticking to the noise rock that Nirvana’s guitars would offer. The band members can all be heard marrying their collective styles together in Transformers X, through the head banging mosh pit noise rock sound that makes them Gray Haven.